Organizing Tools

The Organizing Cycle

The steps of the organizing cycle

Community organizing is not a program with a beginning and an end, but rather it is an ongoing cycle. Each step is an opportunity to identify and develop leaders, build relationships, strengthen the institutions, and encourage positive change. New participants jump in at any step, but eventually need to go through the entire cycle repeatedly.

Vision / Planning Meeting

Deciding to work together and act on something that the group cares about as a whole.

Individual Meetings

Build a relationship by getting to know someone else’s self interest; where do they spend their time and why do they spend it there, what really makes them tick?

House Meetings

Purpose is to build relationships, get a pulse of the congregation and what they care about, seek potential leaders.

Research

Transform the common “problem” into a specific “issue” that leaders commit to and have agreed upon and is winnable.

Public Assembly

Move work toward more public attention.

Evaluation

What went well, what could have gone better, is this working or should we take a new approach?

Renewal of member institutions

Whenever clergy and lay leaders are seeking to strengthen their institutions, Lake County United offers training and support on how to use organizing tools and techniques in revitalizing and renewing leadership teams and a clear sense of mission and direction. With contributions by Lake County United, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) has recently published Effective Organizing for Congregational Renewal highlighting several local examples of this work.

Books

Going Public
by Michael Gecan
"The inside story of an extraordinary politics you probably didn't know existed. Read this book and you may begin to believe that human-scale democracy is still possible in America" -- William Greider, author of Who Will Tell the People
ISBN-13: 978-1400076499

Effective Organizing for Congregational Renewal: All Organizing Is Dis-Organizing and Re-Organizing
by Michael Gecan
ISBN-13: 978-0879463847

Recent News

For lack of better alternatives, write the authors, police often detain and jail people suffering a mental health crisis. As an alternative to beds in jails, as seen in this photograph, Illinois should create crisis stabilization centers, which are like emergency rooms for the mentally ill.

Richard Townsell, Aliya Husain, Kelly Collins and Rabbi Ari Margolis

In his first few weeks as governor, J.B. Pritzker will have to take a swing at a lot of tough pitches, but one important issue looks to us like an easy fastball over the middle of the plate.

September 25 at Congregation Solel, Lake County United held an action with 17 leader to witness a virtual shareholder meeting of the American Outdoor Brands Company (Smith and Wesson Gun Manufacturer) annual meeting. In this meeting a shareholder's resolution requiring the company to issue a report on what they are doing to curb gun violence AND THE RESOLUTION PASSED by a majority of stockholders. This is the second of the only two publicly traded gun manufacturers to pass this resolution. Lake County United joined affiliate organizations throughout the U.S.

Join leaders from Lake County United to engage gun manufacturers in making our communities safer. At this meeting, shareholders – including leaders from affiliates of LCU – will vote in support of a resolution requiring a report from gun manufacturers. We have invited key allies to join us in support.